


Serendipity

by Vakarian



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff, Happy Ending AU, proposal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-14
Updated: 2016-02-14
Packaged: 2018-05-20 16:33:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,886
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6016657
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vakarian/pseuds/Vakarian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"She sidles in after him, and he watches her steal a suspicious, smirking glance his way. Surprises, he knows, are not her forte. The said element, however, is absolutely essential to his plan."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Serendipity

His nerves are tingling like an electric current, and his gut is tight with anticipation. He has waited for Shepard many a time. Spirits, he once even waited two years, two dark years on Omega waiting for a ghost. She never disappoints though, her agreeable figure immediately catching his eye. She is in her standard Alliance, civilian wear. Even with the destruction of the Reaper threat, she still wore them and remained on ‘active’ duty much to add to his existing anxiety for her. In the aftermath of the final battle, there is so much to be salvaged and rebuilt; Shepard had been more than willing to offer her dedication even after having nearly sacrificed herself. While he does understand the inexhaustible devotion she has, he wishes he could remove the sight of her walking away that fateful night from his memory, the sight of her being swallowed into blinding white light, the thought of never seeing her again… Although, Shepard also has a knack for cheating death. Garrus does not care if it is luck or destiny that keeps bringing them together and does not wish to jinx any higher force at work by thinking such.

There is an inexorable tiredness written on her face, no doubt borne from the arduous struggles of war. However, Garrus constantly is struck by how beautiful she is, no matter the situation. She cut her hair soon after it had all ended, and though the turian had initially despaired (he so loved those long, soft tresses), he is all but used to combing through the much shorter style now, finding it equally enjoyable. On top of it all, she simply looked stunning regardless. Her smile comes next, one that is specifically reserved for him. Shepard did not often smile with her mouth’s full potential, most were rewarded with a cordial grin or knowing smirk. But, Spirits, when she looks at him he cannot help but feel extraordinarily exclusive.

So, now, she’s beaming at him. His mandibles twitch on their own accord as he mimics the jovial expression. Though she is beautiful all over, in the artificial sunlight of the Citadel her eyes are consuming. He does not once flinch from gazing into them, fully.

“Not many places to go on a date with all these sectors shut down for repairs until ‘further notice’.” She air-quotes appropriately, earning a laugh from him.

“Truly. But, I do know one place.” Garrus says with a knowing that is sure to capture her interest as always.

She does, in turn, quirk her brow. “Yeah?”

He shrugs. “It’s gonna be a surprise though.”

Shepard makes a face.

“Ah,” he takes her up by her waist and pulls her against him, her ever-present smile almost driving him crazy right there, “Now, don’t give me that look. You will thoroughly approve.”

If any protest were to come from her, it never passes. Garrus effectively leans down and presses his much less pliant mouth to hers, clutching her close to his body in some shameless greediness to be as close to her as possible. Being with a human, he’s had to learn to do his best when it comes to certain aspects of their relationship. Kissing, included. If the initial awkwardness of it affected Shepard, she certainly never gave any hint of it. Her soft lips eagerly meet him, and she makes the smallest noise when he gingerly licks at her. He does pull back though; there will be more opportunity for this, he’s certain.

“Alright.” She parts from his grasp with some obvious reluctance (much to Garrus’ delight, he relishes seeing her affectionate quirks). “Take me to go look at your stupid surprise.” Shepard relinquishes, emotively but jokingly exasperated.

If turian complexion allowed them to glow with their emotions as humans did, he’d be illuminated with his own tangible delight. Though the commander never really has denied him, there is an ever-accompanying blithe with her indulging him. 

He hails a transit car for them, teeming with his excitement. He has to make an effort not to buzz in his seat. She sidles in after him, and he watches her steal a suspicious, smirking glance his way. Surprises, he knows, are not her forte. The said element, however, is absolutely essential to his plan. As he’s piloting the transit, he clears his throat. “Shepard, do you remember that day, on top of the Presidium? You know, when I won our little contest.”

Her answer comes in a ‘mhmm’, staring at him more fully with a little half-smirk that is key to her amusement.

“Well, ‘thing about that is, I am all too aware of your skill and abilities. I’ve spent years having your back—totally never have taken advantage of said position to stare—and biotics or no, you’re still my closest competition.”

Shepard snorts, her interest sufficiently piqued however.

He chuckles. “Well, I just—I know, you let me win.” When she looks like she is about to cut in he insists, “Well, I have known, really. But, what I said that day: that _is_ my favorite spot, still.”

“Oh, I don’t know if I can believe that. You, Vakarian? I can hardly imagine your favorite spot being somewhere, where you _lost_.” 

“No, because that’s when I knew,” he turns his head from driving momentarily to catch her eye, noticing the breathtaking way she is enraptured in his speech. He can tell, just by the way she waits for him to speak, that she’s hanging onto every word. Garrus perks his mandibles blissfully as he continues, unwilling to look away from her, “That’s when I knew that, this woman is the best in the universe, and yet, she still chose me.”

She sits in silence for a moment, the hum of the transit car hovering through the air the only other sound between them. Her mouth twitches like she is struggling to say so much all at once, but where her mouth fails, her eyes convey everything. The amount of emotion that floods there and washes over her is crystalline. Finally, she simply stares at him with an unadulterated smile that says everything else before averting her gaze towards the window with rosy cheeks. How frustrating for your body to betray your feelings so easily, he thinks, though in retrospect hardly minds since these very human things are mostly to his advantage.

Shepard, after a few minutes, does growl, “I should’ve not let you win.”

“And miss all that? Highly doubt it, Shepard.” He replies with a teasing look.

She softens. “Yeah.” An unmistakable fondness touches her voice.

He hums. “Nearly there.”

Garrus veers off the designated path for transit and goes up, though this route is also familiar. He notices she too seems to recognize where they’re going, mostly because she glances towards him with a question poised on the edge of her tongue. He can imagine it sounds like ‘The top of the presidium?’ or ‘Breaking the rules once is one thing, but twice?’ or ‘There’s only so many strings I can pull before we get booted off the Citadel’. But she looks on through the window without a word, nothing more than a lingering smile given in return to the realization.

Once he parks the vehicle, the doors slide open and the couple exits in unison. His eyes are on Shepard, and she laughs, “Rematch, then?” She stands there with the backdrop of the sky framing her silhouette, proceeding to cross her arms over her chest and do her signature hip cock. Smirk.

His mandibles flare as he scoffs playfully. “No, no rematch. But, being that it is my favorite place on the Citadel, I thought it would be a good location to pass time with my, coincidentally, favorite person.”

Though her eyes roll ceremoniously, the way she has to look anywhere but at him and smile to herself says worlds more. When she turns away, she gazes out across the presidium, and he watches a sigh escape her body. “It is beautiful.”

Garrus has meandered next to her, close enough for his hip to brush against her. He leans his head in her direction. “She is, but the view is nice too, I suppose.”

She flashes a look up at him in exasperation, shoving him with her elbow. “Christ, Garrus, it’s like you’re begging me to push you off the edge.” Then a little sweeter, she makes a noise of consideration, she settles closer to him and hooks her hand in the crook of his arm. Her cheek rests on him. “But thank you..” Shepard murmurs with an unmatched tenderness, one that is exclusively given to him.

They stand uninterrupted for minutes long. Garrus eventually rests the tip of his chin against her soft hair, basking in the way she curls up into him. He almost loses himself just in their simple embrace, but a slim hand on his chest brings him back to reality, to the precious woman in his arms. A human saying comes to his mind, ‘a diamond in the rough’, a perfect and rare gem right here, irrevocably his. How he, failed C-sec officer, ex-vigilante (who does kill reapers on the side), managed to find the most incredible creature and all of the galaxy is beyond him. The gratitude washes over him, gratitude for finding each other, for surviving through the whole damn apocalypse together. The whole serendipity of it all surges through him, that this is all he ever wants, from now until the end of time.

“Shepard.” He says gently, and he can feel his heart thump in his chest when grey irises look up at him expectantly. “Can I ask you something?”

“Anything.” Shepard replies without missing a beat.

Garrus takes a step back, willing his nerves not to light on fire. He fishes for something small in one of his pockets, talons gripping it and slipping into the palm of his hand. His breath escapes his nostrils in a shaky way, mandibles fluttering against his cheeks anxiously. It took a few sleepless nights of research on old human customs, and he hopes that this is one that she’s not only familiar with but one that she thoroughly approves of. His eyes glance at Shepard, who is staring at him with a slight furrow in her brow, but she doesn’t say anything though the anticipation in the space between them thickens.

Throwing his remaining caution to the wind, the turian sinks down onto one knee. He watches her carefully, his visor telling him her vitals have increased, her heart rate namely.

“Garrus—” Her eyes widen, and her voice cracks a little, “What—what are you doing?”

When he produces the ring from between his claw tips, she stares at him in something he can only place as astonishment, and he wishes she would give him just a little more than that to ease his anxiety.

It’s a silvery band of thulium incased in glass to preserve the metal, airtight. Light glints off of it as he tries to keep his hand steady. He produces his best form of a smile he can give her, flaring his mandibles and showing his teeth. “Shepard, I—I love you.” He blurts like he had been holding his breath. “Never in my entire life would I have expected to have been blessed with meeting such an incredibly strong, brave and beautiful woman. Every day, I find myself loving you impossibly more, and I just can’t seem to get used to all the ways in which your presence touches every part of my life.” Uninterrupted, he continues on, “I can’t think of anyone I respect and love more than you, Shepard. I want to spend every moment I can with you until the end.” Then, a shaky smirk. “And maybe we can do it all over again after that..”

Deep breath.

“Will you—bond, with me? Forever.” He teeters on his knee, still holding the ring for her to accept, a little unsure the words would translate correctly. His heart is pumping blood so fast it almost hurts. Love should be like that, should bear down on you with all the intensity of the universe behind it. Garrus would have never pegged himself as a romantic until Shepard came along.

There are tears in her eyes. And then the laughter bubbles from her, kind of catching in her throat. “Marry you.” She confirms quietly as if he’d taken her breath with his proclamation, fingers touching her mouth as if to quell the irreversible smile.

The joy on her face makes him feel like his heart is going to explode, and the relief of what looks to be her acceptance flows through him like a drug. He’s warm all over. Ah, that’s right. _Marriage, that’s the one_. He can barely speak through his own smile, “Will, you, marry me?”

There’s a minute tremor in her body, no doubt an adrenaline spike the way her pupils are dilated and her breathing quickens. The tears, almost barely noticeable travel in twin silent streaks down either cheek. He resists the instinctual urge to wipe them away, waiting, waiting on her to say something. Her body seems to lean towards him subconsciously, and she whispers, “yes,” and louder, “yes—Garrus, I,”

In under seconds he throws himself up and grabs her, sealing her mouth in a fervent kiss. Her lips part, and her tongue chases after his past his teeth. His grip on her is tight, like he’s afraid that if he lets go he’ll wake up and she won’t be there, that all this, all this would have been a dream. But right now, she is definitely real, very real and completely his. Bondmates, forever.

When they part, he can finally wipe the tears from her eyes. It’s like she can’t stop smiling, gazing up at him. He steps back a little, takes up her left hand. It was the left, wasn’t it? “May I?” She nods, and his mandibles quiver in teeming excitement. He counts down from the thumb, one, two, three, just shy of her smallest finger. He slides the ring onto her appropriately dubbed ‘ring finger’, and it’s a perfect fit. Garrus marvels briefly at his own recon skills on finding out the right size. It looks incredible, and the gravity of it, the significance of it makes his head reel.

“It’s amazing, Garrus.”

“Mm, looks better on you than I could have ever imagined.”

She looks from the thulium band to his face.

“I, ah, have imagined it several times, on several occasions..”

Shepard rubs the ring with her thumb fondly, and then shrugs, her eyes shyly averting from his own gaze. “I wasn’t sure if turians, you know… I guess I just never had time to think about if you—”

“We do, but, it isn’t normal for a turian bonding to be…interspecies, cultural significance and all.”

“Oh,” she says, lips slightly parted as if, as if she had indeed wondered about him in that way, as if she had wondered if it would be possible…

Garrus takes both of her hands in his, looking at her with an unwavering certainty. “I can’t say how we’ll do any kind of ceremony. I’ve thought, toyed with ideas, but I had to be sure that this—that I was what you wanted. It will be a joint effort. This,” he fingers the ring between his talons, “doesn’t have to be anything more than a testimony to my ceaseless affections.” He stares at it, swallowing. “But, as far as I’m concerned I will consider you my.. betrothed, if that’s alright with you.”

Shepard squeaks a little when she laughs, and normally she would cover that up in embarrassment, but she must be too far gone into bliss to care. “Fiancée.” Her eyes shine up at him.

“Pardon?” Did his translator glitch?

Another giggle. “There must not be a word equivalent.” She shrugs, smiles. “You are my fiancé, and I am your fiancée.”

He blinks; it sounds pretty, but he can’t tell the difference, at all.

“It means someone who is _betrothed_.” That must be funny to her, the way her voice dips on the word with a little humor to it.

Shepard moves closer, fingering the front of his casual wear, where his carapace crests right up the middle of his chest. Her lashes flicker downward over her eyes, and he can’t read her very well like this. He focuses on the little flecks dusting over her face, _freckles_ , he remembers. Some humans get them from sun exposure, a concentration of pigment. He’s counted them before, or tried, but somehow there are always more. Strange human features, strange beautiful human features.

“Garrus, I know that I want to be with you. Forever. That’s what’s important here, how we do it doesn’t really matter, all that matters is that I get to do it all with you.” She looks up finally, and, Spirits, she is so stunning. Her eyes are still glossy from the tears, cheeks flush, her teeth showing in a gorgeous smile. The sight nearly knocks him over right there. “There is no Shepard without Vakarian.”

The turian breathes out a relieved chuckle, the words hitting closer to home than anything. _She is home_ , he thinks. “No Shepard without Vakarian. Promise.”

**Author's Note:**

> happy valentine's day


End file.
